


Eye of the Storm

by FelicityGS



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, BDSM, Berserker Thor, Breathplay, Choking, Coping, I love her, NOT THOR CENTRIC, Trauma, and is never quite explicitly stated, bdsm as coping is lit the best thing ever, but it's not explicit, d/s dynamics, for all you can tell, healthy BDSM, heavily implied past rape, loki's fucked up from having his face pounded in, loki's the loved prince awwww, natasha romanoff is weaponized and dangerous but utterly in control of herself, nonsexual bdsm, past implied Bad Stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 13:12:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2389523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelicityGS/pseuds/FelicityGS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki stares up at Natasha, pulse thudding in his head. She doesn't move, doesn't blink, just looks back.</p><p>Natasha's eyes are storm cloud grey, predatory, intelligent. <em>Aware. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Eye of the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Berserker Thor AU's give me life. 
> 
> If I ever do write more in this verse, I think I'd do one from Thor's POV, so we get a better feel for how he's been ground down by having his affliction. (Berserkers are very much unnatural in this verse, you'll pick that up in the fic tho)
> 
> while i've tagged for past rape, i want to make it clear that it is _never explicitly stated that's what happened_. i'm mostly tagging it to warn, because there are elements of loki's reactions that recall a survivors and he was very much written with that in mind. either way, thor's severely hurt loki and there's trauma associated with that.
> 
> i mostly wanted an excuse to write some nonsexual bdsm and world-build a berserker thor au. 
> 
> credit to Verbyna to helping with the world-building/construction.

Loki goes to Natasha because it's better than checking the wards around Thor once more. They're perfect--he's reviewed them several times since setting them up. It's not his fault that perfect isn't always good enough where Thor is concerned.

She looks up as he comes in, a flicker of a smile at her lips and her eyes kind. Off the battlefield, she's quite a different creature than the predator with the wicked smile he's seen on it. She smiles like Thor, but her eyes are always clear,  _aware_ \--

"You made a proposal," Loki says by way of opening, to explain his rather unexpected presence. He should be with Thor; anyone else would have said as much by now--and that, too, is why he has enjoyed her company so during his brief few weeks on Midgard--Earth.

"I did," Natasha says. She's still smiling, but now it does not touch her eyes; she considers. Weighs. Her eyes are grey as Thor's storm clouds.

(But they are  _aware_.)

"I want to try something." She stands from her desk, leaving one of her myriad weapons half-assembled, and approaches him. Loki stands his ground, raising an eyebrow, waits to hear what it is she has to say. "Just to try. You can leave at any point, be it out the door or with your fancy teleporter science that makes Stark cry. If you leave, we won't bring it up; that'll be that."

Loki snorts. 

"You've yet to tell me what you wish to test," he points out. 

"I want you to listen to me."

He barely refrains from rolling his eyes. Humans tend to be so shy about these things; as if he's never played such games before. 

"A game, then," he says. "Natasha, I'm touched, truly."

Natasha grins--it's sharp and predatory, playful, and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. 

"Not quite. You'll do what I tell you because you choose to."

Loki's mouth goes dry.

"Just the once," Natasha says. "I want to test something."

(What did she  _see_?)

He makes himself smile.

"Then let's play," Loki says with a smirk.

(Nothing. She would not have seen anything.)

***

Loki was very young the first time Thor entered the beserkr state. He barely remembers it except for the flash of colours--red and gold and bone, the blue of his mother's dress, his father's black cloak. It smelled of storm and blood and bile. 

After that, he started learning seidr. 

(They thought, once, that they could control it.  _Help_ Thor.)

***

"Do you want me to undress?" Loki asks, glancing around the room, teasing at a glove as if to pull it off. The thought is terrifying (Thor is too close), but he plays it off; he has no idea what's at stake and has little intent to lose whatever test she has concocted. He meets her eyes and smirks. "Isn't that how these things usually go?"

"No." Natasha tilts her head. "Stay. Be quiet."

Then she turns on her heel without looking to see if he's listening and goes back to her desk, to the half-assembled gun. She sits down, pulls it the rest of the way apart, and begins to clean.

***

When Loki was in his second century, he found a spell that could resuppress the beserkr state--perfect. He practiced the motions and the words constantly, always separate, until it was all that he could hear when he closed his eyes, until his hands twitched with it. Thor hadn't fallen to the state in near three years--surely, it would be unnecessary. Never had it been so long between.

(Loki loved Thor then; Thor was bright and golden and laughter, with a booming voice and his arms safe when he would swing Loki up onto his shoulders. He was  _warmth_.

Thor always looked haunted after coming out of the berserkr state, eyes dark and some inner light dimmed. Loki thought he could fix this  _unnaturalness_  in his brother, thought that it would just take enough time and effort and research. Childish.)

It was a battle that did it. It wasn't always a battle, but battles were so  _sure_. 

Loki rode out, still a child. He remembers his mother was with him. He remembers mouthing the words one last time as they galloped out, remembers the knot of anxiety in his stomach, but more than that, the excitement. 

The  _hope_. 

***

Loki watches Natasha work for a while if only because he finds the way her hands move interesting before he begins to get bored, then restless. But he tries to stay still, to listen, if only for curiosity and pride's sake. 

There's nothing for her to learn from this tedium. 

"Come here," Natasha says without looking up, and then, when he is not quite in range to touch her, "Stop." 

He does, but he can't quite help the huff of annoyance. She glances at him, eyes cold, displeasure tight in her mouth, vicious and animalistic and nearly a growl--

( _he snarls; he always snarls when_ \--)

Loki stills. He makes himself breathe, tries to ignore the ice down his spine or the way his stomach has dropped, the nausea in his throat. 

Natasha's eyes are wholly aware and intelligent; he focuses on that. It helps, though he can't quite manage to steel himself once more, suddenly doesn't find this game half so tedious or harmless. 

Natasha doesn't smile, but the fury abates to stillness. She examines him, then gives a short nod of approval. 

"Get on your knees."

He stares at her, half-furious; the only one who has ever been able to command him so is his king, and all else ( _Thor_ ) who have managed it have done so by force. But that isn't the point--this is a game. A test.

He kneels, just out of reach, his stomach twisting around itself, hating the way he responds to her smile, the pleasure in her eyes that vanishes like morning mist before he can even savour it. 

"Good," she says. He bites his tongue before he can say anything caustic back, but there's heat along the back of his neck at the praise, at her obvious...  _acknowledgement_. 

***

At four hundred, Mjolnir chooses Thor. 

The same year, Frigga tells Loki he's adopted. (A kindness from Odin--his father would never have managed it with half the grace his mother did). 

Loki started to learn more than just how to corral and redirect Thor in the berserkr state. He started to learn of Yggdrasil properly--learn knowledge that only kings and their heirs were meant to know. He learns that Odin needed another legitimate heir when they discovered the unnatural  _berserkr_  curse in Thor's blood, that if Thor were ever to connect to Yggdrasil, it would poison the Tree. He learns how to do what Odin does, that there is more than just Thor to bind him forever to Asgard now.

Mjolnir chose Thor, and the spark of Yggdrasil in her means more than the king's word. Odin can't name Loki his heir proper and so he tells him his plans. Loki will never be the one to take the throne, not publicly. 

Mjolnir chose Thor.

Thor stopped trying to restrain himself. 

***

"Put your hands on your thighs."

Loki listens. 

The orders come one after another after that, all minor adjustments-- _chin up, head back, straighten your spine, uncurl your fists_ \--and slowly Loki finds himself easing into her steady rhythm, stops internally balking, stops choking, stops questioning the warmth along his spine and low in his belly.

She hasn't laid a finger on him, but it doesn't feel that way. There's her and the gray storm in her eyes and her control that never slips.

Natasha gives a small and predatory smile. His tries to keep from shivering, fails. 

(He wants to lean into her, wants to feel her hands on him, wants--

"I'm going to give you a choice," Natasha says. "I'm going to get up in a moment and put my hand next to your throat. And if you choose, I'll choke you."

He tries not to jerk back as she does, breath and heart both speeding up, tries not to lean back and away from her even as everything screams at him to  _run_ , to get away-- _predator_  and predators that grab him by the throat do not let go--

"You can leave," Natasha says, hand hovering by his throat. He blinks at her, mouth dry, but she's done so well at loosening him up, in having him put everything else in her hands--

"Breathe," she says. Her hand doesn't move. "This is your choice. You don't have to do this."

***

The first time Thor caught Loki, Loki was eight and a half hundred, still getting used to his last growth spurt. 

Thor's eyes were a perfect sky blue, rimmed electric at the edges, and feral. Unaware.

Thor always grabs him by the throat first. 

Loki stares up at Natasha, pulse thudding in his head. She doesn't move, doesn't blink, just looks back.

Natasha's eyes are storm cloud grey, predatory, intelligent.  _Aware_. 

He leans into her touch, feels the pad of her thumb run up his neck and down again, a swift reassurance, catches the sharp and wicked smirk on her face before her grip tightens, air cutting off--

_Thor's hand is massive, hands, he can't breath, can't move Thor off, panic and every spell he knows fled and not even reflex to save him, he needs--_

"You chose this," Natasha says in his ear. She loosens her grip a moment, long enough he starts to suck in a panicked gasp, but too short to truly pull any air in; she cuts him off so that his lungs burn and everything in him wants to lean into her,  _wants this_ , but he shouldn't, it's-- 

"You  _chose this_ ," Natasha repeats, steady and even as all the commands she gave before. 

_He doesn't--does--he needs to get away, needs to not--_

"Breathe.  _Breathe_." Natasha lets go, allows him air, and he clings tight to her legs, gasps against her before her grip tightens again. "Good," she murmurs. " _You_  chose this." 

Her hand is smaller. Her eyes are so stormy and so calm despite the predator in her, everything about her collected and controlled, and her grip keeps pulling him back, her voice, all of her anchoring him now in only  _this._ Her other hand twines in his hair, twists, the pain sharp and sweet and he wants to keen but he has no air, can only manage a choked off whine,  _Norns_ , how he wants her,  _wants this_ \--

_his body responds and he hates-hates-hates---_

"Let go." Natasha eases her grip, lets him choke in a few lungfuls of air. He twists his hands in her clothing tighter until her grip returns. Tears sting his eyes, worse as she tugs his hair and yanks his head back once more, maintaining eye contact--analytic and compassionate. Sure. So sure. "I've got you."

 _Thor_  he wants to say. He can't let go, he has to watch Thor, the realms, he has to, no one else--

 _Thor's hands are large and calloused and Loki doesn't want_ \--

Natasha twists a fistful of his hair, a bright and grounding pain, as she relaxes her other hand, lets him breathe. He closes his eyes, tears spilling over, spine oversensitive with tension winding tighter still. His breath is short, choppy; his throat and lungs both burn. 

"Look at me.  _Look_  at me." 

He opens his eyes, meets hers. 

"Let. Go."

Her hand is at his throat, in his hair. She's warm beneath his hands, small and soft and so so  _steady_. 

"You chose this, Loki," she says, voice gentle, eyes painfully kind. 

He isn't sure what the noise torn out of his chest is, only knows that he doesn't want to let her go, doesn't want to  _do this_  anymore, and that--for a moment--he doesn't  _have to_. There's her hands and her voice and her commands, her pulling and pushing and choking, the pent-up tension releasing as he slumps against her, trying to breathe through the ache and  _relief, relief relief relief_.

***

Natasha strokes Loki's hair where he's half-crawled into her lap when she managed to maneuver herself to a chair, face pressed against her belly.

"Good," she murmurs into his ear, watching the way he shudders, listens to the hitch in his breath at the word. "Good." 

His hands tighten briefly against her, then relax. The wounded breathing starts to ease up, the shudders turn to small shivers. 

It was guess more than anything that gave her the idea for this--Sif's pause before saying they should call Loki, the way he talked about Thor, the flash of terror on his face when a berserked Thor noticed him. The shame when they finally managed to catch up to the brothers and distract Thor enough for Loki to lay the last bindings. 

"There you go," she says, smoothing his hair. "I've got you." 

It was  _Loki_  that made her want to try this. Loki, who chuckled at her terrible jokes and liked to try her shitty take out food, who manages to out sass Tony Stark on occasion and is genuinely a good time when he drops his ice prince act for two seconds. 

Eventually, Loki's breathing evens out again. Natasha waits until he lets go of her to smooth his hair one last time and draw her hands back. 

"You okay?" she asks, bending down to get a look at him. His eyes are bloodshot, face damp, but he gives her a half-smile and there's a tension missing from his shoulders that he'd had ever since he arrived on Earth. She touches his face, smooths her thumb along one of his too sharp cheekbones. 

"You have an interesting idea of how to make better."

She grins. 

"Does that mean you want another go sometime?"

Loki hesitates. Natasha laughs, letting him go and tugging him to get him to stand up properly. 

"I'm only half-serious," she promises, standing up as well. "Let's get you put back together."

***

"Thank you," Natasha says as Loki gets ready to leave. He pauses, turning to look at her. 

"I am rather certain I should be telling you that."

"And you're very welcome since I know you won't say it."

Loki laughs. 

"Seriously. Thank you for trusting me. It's an honour."

Loki goes quiet at that, studying her. Natasha lets him, waits on him to decide what he wants to say, if anything.

"Another time," Loki finally says. Natasha pretends not to notice the colour at the edge of his neck and tips of his ears when he says it, just gives a sharp grin.

"Whenever you want." 


End file.
